Era of Reform Timeline

This convention was organized by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, fellow women’s rights abolitionists who met at the World Anti-Slavery Convention(1840). Located at the Wesleyan Methodist Church in Seneca Falls, New York, this women’s rights convention was the first of its nature to be held in the United States.

Led by Frances Dana Barker Gage in Akron, Ohio, the women in attendance were inspired by the Declaration of Rights signed during the Seneca Falls Convention. It was also in this convention that Sojourner Truth, a former slave and part of the abolitionist movement for enslaved African Americans and also women’s rights, gave her “Ain’t I a Woman?” speech. In her short speech, Truth asserted that she, a woman, is every bit like a man.

A women’s rights organization, in which activists Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Lucy Stone were the founders. This organization was created to “secure Equal Rights to all American citizens, especially the right of suffrage, irrespective of race, color, or sex”. The president of the AERA was Lucretia Mott.

The Underground Railroad was a network of secret routes and safe houses established in the United States during the early-to-mid 18th century, and used by African-American slaves to escape into free states and Canada with the aid of abolitionists and allies who were sympathetic to their cause. It was created in the late 1700s, and Harriet Tubman, who was born a slave, helped many slaves to freedom.

The Liberator (1831–1865) was an abolitionist newspaper founded by William Lloyd Garrison and Isaac Knapp in 1831. Garrison co-published weekly issues of The Liberator from Boston continuously for 35 years, from January 1, 1831, to the final issue of December 29, 1865.

An abolitionist society founded by William Lloyd Garrison, and Arthur Tappan. Frederick Douglass, an escaped slave, was a key leader of this society, and often spoke at its meetings.

Published in 1836, this book was written by Angelina Emily Grimké for anti-slavery purposes

When Douglass wrote this book in 1845, slavery was still legal in much of the United States. He became a public speaker and writer to try to stop it.